That’s what Jodi’s reporting. And I say, good riddance. It’s not just that TOIEC doesn’t test real ability; it’s also that TOEIC sidetracks people from trying to learn to understand English, into memorizing ridiculous obscure grammar points and, worse, memorizing methodologies designed to maximize correct answers on TOEIC tests through absolutely inane grammatical analysis of the questions. Yes, really. Ask Lime if you don’t believe me. Or the people I work with, who can tell you horror stories about TOEIC preparation book questions that make absolutely no sense. Me, I just wonder how anyone convinced so many people to accept …
Category: KOREA
Helping North Koreans Defect Is Easy Part, Missionaries Find – New York Times
Found in the Marmot’s Hole: Helping North Koreans Defect Is Easy Part, Missionaries Find – New York Times “My wife was never a party member, so it was easier for her to accept Christianity,” he said. “I was a party member for 10 years, and they indoctrinated us with the party ideology. When I hear Christian preaching, it sounds similar to the party teachings. Christians praise God, but North Koreans praise Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il,” the founder of the North Korean state and his son, the current leader. “At least, they are mortal and we can see …
Tell Us You’re Sorry, Dr. Hwang
Lately, I’ve been catching up on a few blogs I find interesting. One of them is Asia Pages. The fine host there, Jodi, has had a couple of posts (1) (2) (
TESOL Radio
The EFL-Law guy from efl-law.org has a radio show you can listen to online; lots of interesting listening here.
Using What You Know
NOTE: Apologies to those who read this incomplete. I posted it by accident when I meant to save it as a draft, and didn’t notice until some time later. Please have another look at the end, where most of the additions can be found. Lately in my more mid-level or advanced classes I’ve been experimenting with something I consider important, which is getting students to learn how to use the English they know to “approach” vocabulary they don’t know. Now, for me, this seems like a really natural thing to do. When I’m talking to a Korean ajeoshi in a …
Mind Control 101
After my more advanced course in Speech & Drama met today, and I showed the students a few tricks about getting the audience to relax and feel sympathetic to a speaker, one of the girls in the class asked me, with a big friendly smile on her face, How do I control my audience’s mood? While it sounds like a scary question, it’s quite understandable as a question coming from one of the higher-level students, and if you knew her you’d probably guess she doesn’t mean anything as Manchurian Candidate-esque as real mind-control. You don’t just need to know she’s …
One Thing I’m Really Wondering
I don’t mean to be nasty about this. I really am wondering. So are most of the people I work with, and most of the foreigners I know personally in Korea. So if anyone can offer me some explanation, it would be very nice. I have found that that during the summer months, Koreans’ sense of a comfortable working temperature is, in general, on average, close to my sense of a comfortable working temperature. Sometimes I’ve preferred it a little cooler, and sometimes it has been Koreans I’ve worked with who preferred their office environment a little cooler than my …
Her Japanese Nurse Friend’s Favorite “Character”
Yes, my girlfriend actually has a friend who is a Japanese nurse. (Get your minds out of the gutter, all you naughty people.) The real question that came to my mind is this: what the heck is a “Miffy”? Calls out from the wilderness to Google, the Keeper of All Knowledge. Oh, that. Okay. Pan-Asian Cartoony cutesy character thingamadoodle. That was what I thought when I googled Miffy. That gave me pause. Why are these things so popular in Asia? I can understand a cultural difference in which people came to like “cute” things much more unabashedly here — I …
OhmyNews International
While I still don’t have a lot of sympathy for those caught for teaching in Korea illegally, OhMyNew International’s carrying a story called Prison Diary of an English Teacher which at least has me thinking that the way people are handled after being caught leaves much to be desired. But of course, it’s not the first time a ridiculous incarceration has happened in Korea — see the section of the documentary “If You Were Me” dealing with the story of Chandra Gurung, a Nepalese woman who spent over half a decade in a mental institution in South Korea because (a) …
Elementary Camp — A Horde of Childe
Yes, we would be able to mount a Childrens’ Crusade or something. I’m not kidding! It’s now all Elementary School-level classes, with the Middle School camp program being canceled by City Hall, apparently to make way for the new English Village program in the city. Last I heard the numbers were roughly 150 elementary school-aged kids, divided between 11 teachers. It will definitely have to be split into upper and lower level groups, or, perhaps, split in two different ways, sometimes split ABCDE/FGHIJK (such as in academic competitions), and sometimes split ACEGIK/BDFHJ (as for drama day, so two classes of …